Featured episodes are what have really drawn me, and tons of others into getting excited each and every week in STO. I would have to say I have been really excited each week for the last 2 months waiting for "next weeks episode" but from the interview, I'm worried that these weekly episodes will become sporadic at best, or not come out as often.
Is this true? Right now we had 5 episodes, 3 weeks rest, then we're getting 5 more episodes. I had expected we'd wait 3 more weeks and then move onto our next set of 5 episodes but I'm worried that we won't be getting these awesome Weekly Episodes as often.
Please let us know that these episodes will continue at the same rate!
I'd hope they ACTUALLY become weeklies. Right now it's more biweekly (when you average). However, I also want them to be as good as this last episode which was up there with the best, possibly the best episode so far.
Agreed. This is one of the thngs that STO has actually done really really well. I'd hate this to fall into another of STO's forgotten projects, we seem to have too many things that get started, have some considerable time spent on them, then get forgotten, put aside or just trashed. It's as if they have the attention of....oh shiny penny!
Take for example one of my favourites.. The ships floating outside space dock, looked awesome, added some real sense of scale in therer, but they were taken out for 'enhancements'. Th never reappeared sadly.
Take for example one of my favourites.. The ships floating outside space dock, looked awesome, added some real sense of scale in therer, but they were taken out for 'enhancements'. Th never reappeared sadly.
Agree 100% - I LOVED those. I think they removed them because some people were getting REALLY bad slowdown/lag in ESD after they added those in.
Personally, what I love about the Featured Episodes it is VERY apparent that every episode they've learned something new and are pushing themselves - and if they take what they've learned and reverse-engineer it into the rest of the game (all the original missions) then it will take this game to the NEXT level.
This last Devidian mission blew my socks off in terms of graphical quality, etc.
I'd hope they ACTUALLY become weeklies. Right now it's more biweekly (when you average). However, I also want them to be as good as this last episode which was up there with the best, possibly the best episode so far.
5 weeks of Saturday episodes
2 week break
5 weeks of Saturday episodes
is (in your eyes) a biweekly schedule? I think you need to re-examine some basic math; as 10 episodes in 12 weeks is hardly reducable to 'biweekly'. (And it was a 2 week break, not 3 weeks.)
well in my opinion these weeklies are STOs bread and butter right now, and they're getting the game noticed by reviewers and gaming sites.
I'm pretty sure that everyone working on STO wants to continue the weeklies , and i bet they'll be here for a while...
That said, this isn't the first time dstahl has been diplomatic about the future of weekly episodes Massively
YOU SEE,
devs need to follow the same rules as politicians when they tell people stuff, and need to give themselves escape routes to use when they can't (for whatever reason) deliver what we want.
it's like when an interviewer asks a major politician if he's runnin for president... the politician has to say "i need to discuss the possibility with my family and staff blablah..."
that means "holy TRIBBLE, yea that would be great but there are powers at work here i can barely fathom and if i commit to any one answer no matter what it is my soul will be torn from the material sphere"
I am a HUGE STO fan and I have put countless hours into this game that I've never put into any other MMORPG but these Weekly Episodes are what have been drawing me in consistently. Plus, hell, its extra missions to the game (1 more per week) and as missions that scale you can do 'em early and make your low level characters still feel awesome! Add in mission replayability and you're set.
But if they stop making them, which, btw, would be INSANE given the # of positive voices giving these missions thumbs up (I don't think I've seen ONE negative review about them, other then one guy saying they reused some old textures lol) to stop them - at ANY point. Every MMORPG has its pulling point, what draws in an audience, and I think STO has finally stumbled into one of those selling points.
DSTAHL - PEOPLE LOVE THE WEEKLY/FEATURED EPISODES! THIS WILL HELP STO CONTINUE TO GROW AND THRIVE!
There, all caps meaning that he'll see it :P
Seriously, though - stopping these or even giving the excuse that "they're going on hiatus" would be a MISTAKE. Everyone loves them, everyone wants them to continue.
Well I don't expect to get any new episodes (after the Devidians) until January. First we get Episode 3 in December (most of the time they will need for patches) and later on its christmas time (holiday season). Not much time for additional content.
In the long run I hope/fear(?) we will get an overall schedule of 5 missions and 1 month break before the next one starts. In between I hope we will get 1-2 new dailys like Aid the Deferi which either continue the last story or give us some hints for the next one.
Im quite sure we'll continue to get weekly episodes. But i personally dont mind if they slow down in the future, even becoming bi-weekly.
Because as much as i love these episodes, i also know that if the rate isnt sustainable and someone at the office blows out, the whole thing can crash and we'll have a really long hiatus rather than a 2 week delay.
In my mind, even month's plus delay is acceptable. Previously we only got new missions from season updates and even they didnt come as fast as 2 month intervals.
Quality over quantity. Id hate to see them churn out a mediocre epsiode so they can make the deadline.
Featured episodes are what have really drawn me, and tons of others into getting excited each and every week in STO. I would have to say I have been really excited each week for the last 2 months waiting for "next weeks episode" but from the interview, I'm worried that these weekly episodes will become sporadic at best, or not come out as often.
Is this true? Right now we had 5 episodes, 3 weeks rest, then we're getting 5 more episodes. I had expected we'd wait 3 more weeks and then move onto our next set of 5 episodes but I'm worried that we won't be getting these awesome Weekly Episodes as often.
Please let us know that these episodes will continue at the same rate!
i think it means that they are switching thier focus for a month or so to do season 3 and the pre prep of season 4. i also think they need some time to think about the other weekily eps. and who they should put in as the enemy. this is just my guess
i think it means that they are switching thier focus for a month or so to do season 3 and the pre prep of season 4. i also think they need some time to think about the other weekily eps. and who they should put in as the enemy. this is just my guess
I HOPE so. I mean, they should have a team of people working on Weekly Episodes, period. Like I said, every game has its "selling points" and STO seems to have created something amazing that everyone is loving and even websites have been mentioning.
His answer kind of bothered me as well. I mean, it was a simple question: will there be another series after this one? IDK why he answered that way, but I just hope it really means "yes, there will be".
from earlier posts it's clear that they're going to put Weeklies on hold after the Devideans to finish work on Season 3. As it has been previously mentioned, January is the target for a new weekly series
The amount of effort and work going into these episodes is clearly paying off but there is a trade-off between time and features. The concern at this point is that if we want to hit quality/coolness bar of "What Lies Beneath" with all future feature series, we need to allow more time for each episode. Presently, some episodes are getting more "time budget" than others in order to hit the schedule. (its amazing to me how much this is starting to feel like budgeting a tv series).
From my point of view - we love feature episodes. We want to make more, but we want them all to be awesome. My concern is that if we make them all big budget, I need more time.
So perhaps this needs to be a new poll -
Would you rather have some "standard" content every weekend, or would you rather have big budget content but less frequently?
Keep in mind I've always stated this "weekly" stuff is new and mentioned plenty of times that we'd have to evaluate and see how it works out - so this is all part of the evaluation process.
Would you rather have some "standard" content every weekend, or would you rather have big budget content but less frequently?
Keep in mind I've always stated this "weekly" stuff is new and mentioned plenty of times that we'd have to evaluate and see how it works out - so this is all part of the evaluation process.
ohh tough one, i actually kind of like a mix of the two, what ever your doing now is fine with me.
if i had to choose id go big budget but less frequent as UGC should take care of the need for stuff each and every week (although if you could slip in some more patrols like aid the deferi on a more regular basis that would be fine).
The amount of effort and work going into these episodes is clearly paying off but there is a trade-off between time and features. The concern at this point is that if we want to hit quality/coolness bar of "What Lies Beneath" with all future feature series, we need to allow more time for each episode. Presently, some episodes are getting more "time budget" than others in order to hit the schedule. (its amazing to me how much this is starting to feel like budgeting a tv series).
From my point of view - we love feature episodes. We want to make more, but we want them all to be awesome. My concern is that if we make them all big budget, I need more time.
So perhaps this needs to be a new poll -
Would you rather have some "standard" content every weekend, or would you rather have big budget content but less frequently?
Keep in mind I've always stated this "weekly" stuff is new and mentioned plenty of times that we'd have to evaluate and see how it works out - so this is all part of the evaluation process.
Personally? I'd rather have more refinement and tightening up of the game as a whole. I'd rather have more features and gameplay mechanics than more missions here or there.
Well for my part, I am okay if you spend more time on one or two of the 5 episodes to make them awesome, and make the others the more standard missions. The Trek series did this all the time, with filler episodes that were robotic filling in-between the truly awesome ones
3 or 4 week breaks between "series" would be okay too, but any longer and it seems a little sparse. Part of the coolness factor is the "constant" amount of content, so don't get too self-conscious that you forget that part.
And add some simple things during the interludes; Get Stormie to run some sort of "event" one week in the gap or something. There would be lots of time to plan that and still have something to keep us busy.
Personally, I'd like to see A-Content and B-Content, where A-Content is awesome, high-quality gameplay like "What Lies Beneath" that we see somewhat infrequently, and B-Content is just SOMETHING released weekly, even if it's just something like one or two small things like the Deferi daily missions.
The amount of effort and work going into these episodes is clearly paying off but there is a trade-off between time and features. The concern at this point is that if we want to hit quality/coolness bar of "What Lies Beneath" with all future feature series, we need to allow more time for each episode. Presently, some episodes are getting more "time budget" than others in order to hit the schedule. (its amazing to me how much this is starting to feel like budgeting a tv series).
From my point of view - we love feature episodes. We want to make more, but we want them all to be awesome. My concern is that if we make them all big budget, I need more time.
So perhaps this needs to be a new poll -
Would you rather have some "standard" content every weekend, or would you rather have big budget content but less frequently?
Keep in mind I've always stated this "weekly" stuff is new and mentioned plenty of times that we'd have to evaluate and see how it works out - so this is all part of the evaluation process.
For me it really depends on how significant the difference in quality is. I mean, every episode isnt going to be epic; it just isnt. It wasnt that way with the TV shows either. But thats what made the truly epic ones stand out. So no, I dont want crappy content. But I do want some content on a regular basis. And speaking of the TV shows, that was part of what made this whole "weekly" idea so cool; it was kind of like seeing a new episode every week. The longer you take between episodes the less it seems like that though. You kind of lose the comparison at all if you take too long.
The amount of effort and work going into these episodes is clearly paying off but there is a trade-off between time and features. The concern at this point is that if we want to hit quality/coolness bar of "What Lies Beneath" with all future feature series, we need to allow more time for each episode. Presently, some episodes are getting more "time budget" than others in order to hit the schedule. (its amazing to me how much this is starting to feel like budgeting a tv series).
From my point of view - we love feature episodes. We want to make more, but we want them all to be awesome. My concern is that if we make them all big budget, I need more time.
So perhaps this needs to be a new poll -
Would you rather have some "standard" content every weekend, or would you rather have big budget content but less frequently?
Keep in mind I've always stated this "weekly" stuff is new and mentioned plenty of times that we'd have to evaluate and see how it works out - so this is all part of the evaluation process.
I prefer to get this game on the role of things. Dont take this as a negative comment but less small tiny updates that are great when you play but serve nothing as quality afterwards when done. We need to get this game bigger and better. Fix the factions, especially klingon, get more content out, more ships, clothing, missions. Weeklys are great and all but again, will not help this game evolve at all. Especially for people whoa are currently at endgame.
get more content out, ... missions. Weeklys are great and all but again, will not help this game evolve at all. Especially for people whoa are currently at endgame.
This confuses me. You ask for missions, they give you missions, you ask for missions because they don't give you missions?
If you want end-game try going along the persistent PvP zones dStahl covered in his latest interview with STOked.
This confuses me. You ask for missions, they give you missions, you ask for missions because they don't give you missions?
If you want end-game try going along the persistent PvP zones dStahl covered in his latest interview with STOked.
K let me rephrase, weekly's are missions. They are great when played but when your max level you can only do them once. Then thats it. Then your left with the same content ingame currently after the weekly is done. There is nothing else to do ingame. Understand now?
There has to be more done to this game then just weekly updates. We need to get the game bigger and badder
We have seasons but if weeklys are taking up to much of the dev time then maybe something should be done about this... hire more staff *nudge*
Seems to me, that our team is doing the best they can but are limited to things because the team is so small. They will never acknowledge this but its just clear thats how it is.
From my point of view - we love feature episodes. We want to make more, but we want them all to be awesome. My concern is that if we make them all big budget, I need more time.
That completely depends on what people define as 'awesome'. I think that what made "What Lies Beneath" an awesome episode was a mixture of several things:
New Assets. The new map, voice-overs and new code/art were all just right and the use of an added device increased the sense of exploration of the map.
Timing. The timing was great because the atmosphere the episode set was just right for Halloween.
Optional sub-goals. I love missions that can offer different gameplay experience based on team composition.
Pop-up notifications. These made the mission have a sense of urgency to it, without changing anything in actual gameplay.
If you ask me, I'd love to get new weekly episodes that would have more of items #3 and #4 more often, and then, once in a while, more #1 and #2 thrown in when the time-tables and timing are just right.
Would you rather have some "standard" content every weekend, or would you rather have big budget content but less frequently?
Hmm... split it down the middle. A slight delay in content released -- say, a week or two between standard 'episode series' but the occasional (maybe one out of three or four) big-budget series.
That feature alone gives replayability because you no longer need a friend to re-share a mission with you. This also increases the ease to grind accolades and get new mission specific rewards. I perceive this feature as a way to mediate the small team and large hunger for missions at max-level.
The amount of effort and work going into these episodes is clearly paying off but there is a trade-off between time and features. The concern at this point is that if we want to hit quality/coolness bar of "What Lies Beneath" with all future feature series, we need to allow more time for each episode. Presently, some episodes are getting more "time budget" than others in order to hit the schedule. (its amazing to me how much this is starting to feel like budgeting a tv series).
From my point of view - we love feature episodes. We want to make more, but we want them all to be awesome. My concern is that if we make them all big budget, I need more time.
So perhaps this needs to be a new poll -
Would you rather have some "standard" content every weekend, or would you rather have big budget content but less frequently?
Keep in mind I've always stated this "weekly" stuff is new and mentioned plenty of times that we'd have to evaluate and see how it works out - so this is all part of the evaluation process.
Lack of content has been one of the major problems of this game since launch. The need to grind endless clusters to just stay near the mission level curve has been a problem from Lt. Cmdr 6 all the way through RA 3 when you're sent to Gamma Orionas to do RA 5 mission. Weeklies have helped fill some of that gap by giving us several boxes, if not a full level of XP, while doing all 5 parts of each of them. I don't really care for the prospects of the game if we have to go without them for long periods of time. There's only so much of the same cluster grinding I'm willing to do.
I don't think anyone expects all the weekly episodes to be fantastic. For the most part they just need to be fun. It's not like every patrol mission from Lt 3 to RA 2 isn't the same thing over and over: defeat 5 ships in the system and get out. We don't need new zones with every mission, we don't need new maps with every mission, we don't need new dailies with each weekly, and we don't even need new foes with each weekly. We just need fresh content to fill in the holes as we progress to VA.
I'd rather have decent and fun content each week then have exceptional content only once a month. Of course I hope Cryptic can give us both.
That feature alone gives replayability because you no longer need a friend to re-share a mission with you. This also increases the ease to grind accolades and get new mission specific rewards. I perceive this feature as a way to mediate the small team and large hunger for missions at max-level.
Lol and how long has that been talked about? its been postponed and postponed. Also do you really think replaying old missions is going to make this game better... your mistaken.
Also do you really think replaying old missions is going to make this game better... your mistaken.
I agree with you. I have 10 alts. I have done all the replaying I could possibly want to do. Unless replay is dropping incredibly awesome loot I'll save it for alt 11 and onward.
Seems to me, that our team is doing the best they can but are limited to things because the team is so small. They will never acknowledge this but its just clear thats how it is.
hang on, they will never acknowledge their team is small and is therefore limited in what they can do, even though we know that because they have on several occasions told us their team is small and limited on what they can do?
Comments
Take for example one of my favourites.. The ships floating outside space dock, looked awesome, added some real sense of scale in therer, but they were taken out for 'enhancements'. Th never reappeared sadly.
Agree 100% - I LOVED those. I think they removed them because some people were getting REALLY bad slowdown/lag in ESD after they added those in.
Personally, what I love about the Featured Episodes it is VERY apparent that every episode they've learned something new and are pushing themselves - and if they take what they've learned and reverse-engineer it into the rest of the game (all the original missions) then it will take this game to the NEXT level.
This last Devidian mission blew my socks off in terms of graphical quality, etc.
5 weeks of Saturday episodes
2 week break
5 weeks of Saturday episodes
is (in your eyes) a biweekly schedule? I think you need to re-examine some basic math; as 10 episodes in 12 weeks is hardly reducable to 'biweekly'. (And it was a 2 week break, not 3 weeks.)
I'm pretty sure that everyone working on STO wants to continue the weeklies , and i bet they'll be here for a while...
That said, this isn't the first time dstahl has been diplomatic about the future of weekly episodes
Massively
YOU SEE,
devs need to follow the same rules as politicians when they tell people stuff, and need to give themselves escape routes to use when they can't (for whatever reason) deliver what we want.
it's like when an interviewer asks a major politician if he's runnin for president... the politician has to say "i need to discuss the possibility with my family and staff blablah..."
that means "holy TRIBBLE, yea that would be great but there are powers at work here i can barely fathom and if i commit to any one answer no matter what it is my soul will be torn from the material sphere"
But if they stop making them, which, btw, would be INSANE given the # of positive voices giving these missions thumbs up (I don't think I've seen ONE negative review about them, other then one guy saying they reused some old textures lol) to stop them - at ANY point. Every MMORPG has its pulling point, what draws in an audience, and I think STO has finally stumbled into one of those selling points.
DSTAHL - PEOPLE LOVE THE WEEKLY/FEATURED EPISODES! THIS WILL HELP STO CONTINUE TO GROW AND THRIVE!
There, all caps meaning that he'll see it :P
Seriously, though - stopping these or even giving the excuse that "they're going on hiatus" would be a MISTAKE. Everyone loves them, everyone wants them to continue.
In the long run I hope/fear(?) we will get an overall schedule of 5 missions and 1 month break before the next one starts. In between I hope we will get 1-2 new dailys like Aid the Deferi which either continue the last story or give us some hints for the next one.
Because as much as i love these episodes, i also know that if the rate isnt sustainable and someone at the office blows out, the whole thing can crash and we'll have a really long hiatus rather than a 2 week delay.
In my mind, even month's plus delay is acceptable. Previously we only got new missions from season updates and even they didnt come as fast as 2 month intervals.
Quality over quantity. Id hate to see them churn out a mediocre epsiode so they can make the deadline.
i think it means that they are switching thier focus for a month or so to do season 3 and the pre prep of season 4. i also think they need some time to think about the other weekily eps. and who they should put in as the enemy. this is just my guess
I HOPE so. I mean, they should have a team of people working on Weekly Episodes, period. Like I said, every game has its "selling points" and STO seems to have created something amazing that everyone is loving and even websites have been mentioning.
And I don't really mind that, as it gives them more time to polish those episodes and come up with new stuff.
From my point of view - we love feature episodes. We want to make more, but we want them all to be awesome. My concern is that if we make them all big budget, I need more time.
So perhaps this needs to be a new poll -
Would you rather have some "standard" content every weekend, or would you rather have big budget content but less frequently?
Keep in mind I've always stated this "weekly" stuff is new and mentioned plenty of times that we'd have to evaluate and see how it works out - so this is all part of the evaluation process.
ohh tough one, i actually kind of like a mix of the two, what ever your doing now is fine with me.
if i had to choose id go big budget but less frequent as UGC should take care of the need for stuff each and every week (although if you could slip in some more patrols like aid the deferi on a more regular basis that would be fine).
3 or 4 week breaks between "series" would be okay too, but any longer and it seems a little sparse. Part of the coolness factor is the "constant" amount of content, so don't get too self-conscious that you forget that part.
And add some simple things during the interludes; Get Stormie to run some sort of "event" one week in the gap or something. There would be lots of time to plan that and still have something to keep us busy.
For me it really depends on how significant the difference in quality is. I mean, every episode isnt going to be epic; it just isnt. It wasnt that way with the TV shows either. But thats what made the truly epic ones stand out. So no, I dont want crappy content. But I do want some content on a regular basis. And speaking of the TV shows, that was part of what made this whole "weekly" idea so cool; it was kind of like seeing a new episode every week. The longer you take between episodes the less it seems like that though. You kind of lose the comparison at all if you take too long.
I prefer to get this game on the role of things. Dont take this as a negative comment but less small tiny updates that are great when you play but serve nothing as quality afterwards when done. We need to get this game bigger and better. Fix the factions, especially klingon, get more content out, more ships, clothing, missions. Weeklys are great and all but again, will not help this game evolve at all. Especially for people whoa are currently at endgame.
This confuses me. You ask for missions, they give you missions, you ask for missions because they don't give you missions?
If you want end-game try going along the persistent PvP zones dStahl covered in his latest interview with STOked.
K let me rephrase, weekly's are missions. They are great when played but when your max level you can only do them once. Then thats it. Then your left with the same content ingame currently after the weekly is done. There is nothing else to do ingame. Understand now?
There has to be more done to this game then just weekly updates. We need to get the game bigger and badder
We have seasons but if weeklys are taking up to much of the dev time then maybe something should be done about this... hire more staff *nudge*
Seems to me, that our team is doing the best they can but are limited to things because the team is so small. They will never acknowledge this but its just clear thats how it is.
- New Assets. The new map, voice-overs and new code/art were all just right and the use of an added device increased the sense of exploration of the map.
- Timing. The timing was great because the atmosphere the episode set was just right for Halloween.
- Optional sub-goals. I love missions that can offer different gameplay experience based on team composition.
- Pop-up notifications. These made the mission have a sense of urgency to it, without changing anything in actual gameplay.
If you ask me, I'd love to get new weekly episodes that would have more of items #3 and #4 more often, and then, once in a while, more #1 and #2 thrown in when the time-tables and timing are just right.Hmm... split it down the middle. A slight delay in content released -- say, a week or two between standard 'episode series' but the occasional (maybe one out of three or four) big-budget series.
In Development - Episode Replay System
That feature alone gives replayability because you no longer need a friend to re-share a mission with you. This also increases the ease to grind accolades and get new mission specific rewards. I perceive this feature as a way to mediate the small team and large hunger for missions at max-level.
I don't think anyone expects all the weekly episodes to be fantastic. For the most part they just need to be fun. It's not like every patrol mission from Lt 3 to RA 2 isn't the same thing over and over: defeat 5 ships in the system and get out. We don't need new zones with every mission, we don't need new maps with every mission, we don't need new dailies with each weekly, and we don't even need new foes with each weekly. We just need fresh content to fill in the holes as we progress to VA.
I'd rather have decent and fun content each week then have exceptional content only once a month. Of course I hope Cryptic can give us both.
Lol and how long has that been talked about? its been postponed and postponed. Also do you really think replaying old missions is going to make this game better... your mistaken.
ps.. you got a thing for me or what?
hang on, they will never acknowledge their team is small and is therefore limited in what they can do, even though we know that because they have on several occasions told us their team is small and limited on what they can do?